India joins global 4G mobile club: shabhash Airtel!

12th April 2012
India joins global 4G mobile club: shabhash Airtel!
Mittal, Sibal and Kapoor in Kolkata April 10,2012 at the 4G service launch

Kolkata, April 11, 2012: India joins the global club of nations offering their citizens the speedy 4th generation or 4G broadband service to the Internet promising download speeds of up to 20-40 MBPS. On Tuesday, leading global telecom services provider Bharti Airtel, launched the nations first 4G operations in Kolkata – the city which also saw the first Indian cellular mobile phone services 16 years ago in 1995. Airtel has launched the service with the TD-LTE, Time Division –Long Term Evaluation – technology making India one of the first countries in the world to commercial ly deploy this technology. It has partnered with China headquartered ZTE Corporation to plan, design, supply and deploy its 4G network in Kolkata.
The Airtel 4G (TD-LTE) network was launched by Kapil Sibal, Indian Minister of Communications and Information Technology.
Said Sunil Bharti Mittal, Chairman and Managing Director, Bharti Airtel: “Today’s launch is a major milestone for India and Airtel. Over the past 15 years Airtel has been at the forefront of India’s telecom revolution and has set the technology trends in India by aligning with the global standards. We are delighted to now provide leadership in setting the technology standard for 4G services in India by introducing the cutting edge TD-LTE. We are confident that others will follow in this direction and participate in our pioneering effort of making TD-LTE the defacto 4G standard in India.”
Added Sanjay Kapoor, CEO Bharti Airtel (India & South Asia): “According to industry estimates, by 2016 – 6% of all mobile connections will have 4G connection, which would create 36% of the total mobile data traffic – thus paving way for the ensuing data revolution. The impending launch of 4G in the country will provide ultra high speed data access, driving fundamental changes in society at large. We look forward to the launch of 4G technology in India, which will be timed to match the world in its launch.”

Airtel will launch 4G services in Bangalore in the next 30 days. It has selected Huawei as the network supplier for the Karnataka circle. In the next phase, Airtel will launch LTE services in Pune and Chandigarh. http://telecomlead.com/inner-page-details.php?id=8190&block=News